Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and Archbishop
of Vienna, has been generating controversy amongst the faithful and non-Catholics
alike since his article supporting the Intelligent Design movement and attacking
the biological Theory of Evolution was published in the New York Times on 7th
July 2005. Many
anti-evolutionists unfortunately and erroneously interpreted this as an attempt
to set out an official Church teaching on the subject. He has now published an article, ‘The
Designs of Science’, in the January 2006 edition of First Things, an
inter-religious journal dedicated to "advancing a religiously informed public
philosophy for the ordering of society", in which he seeks to clarify and expand
the New York Times piece.

Schönborn’s paper in First Things is cast primarily as a reply to
Catholic physicist
Stephen Barr’s First Things critique of the original Schönborn NYT article. The NYT
article caused consternation and discomfort amongst Catholic scientists like
Barr and George Coyne SJ, who also wrote a
critique of Schönborn's position, and the reaction appears to have surprised Schönborn.
Much of this is, according to him, based on a misunderstanding of his views
and so he wrote ‘The Designs of Science’ to clarify his position

Neo-Darwinism is The Theory

Schönborn expends a lot of effort in
analysing the meaning of the term
‘neo-Darwinism’, since its precise meaning is a critical consideration in the development of
his argument. His issue he insists, is not with ‘evolution but with neo-Darwinism’.He is perfectly happy to accept evolution, the idea, as he sees it,
that species living today are the descendants of extinct species.However, biologists in referring to the Theory of Evolution, mean
not the concept of common descent but the
mechanism by which evolution takes place. Schönborn takes issue with what he
refers to as neo-Darwinism, a theory that is also known as the Modern Synthesis (of Natural Selection and
genetics).Neo-Darwinism or
the Modern Synthesis is the proposition that, to summarise it in a phrase, the
principle mechanism of evolution is the action of Natural Selection on
phenotypes that result from genetic variation, and is, with considerable elaboration and
additional features such as neutral drift and the uneven rate of phenotypic
change over time, the guiding principle of modern biology, The synthesis was
developed in the 1930s and 1940s by a glittering array of biologists that
included Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ronald Fisher, JBS Haldane, Gaylord
Simpson and Sewall Wright.Not only is it the foundational theory of modern biology, it is also
the consensus of Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic and atheist
biologists; biologists of all religions and no religion accept the
basic propositions of neo-Darwinism.

So, let us be absolutely clear – when Schönborn
refers to ‘neo-Darwinism’, we should take him to mean not some atheistic
ideology, but the very foundation of modern biology. Almost every finding in
biology gets structure and meaning from the contextual framework of
evolution without which it would be reduced to a poor catalogue of apparently unrelated facts
.

In his First Things piece, Schönborn refers repeatedly and
censoriously to the science of biology unqualified by the ‘neo-Darwinian’ term.
He and I can agree at least on the point that neo-Darwinism is the scientific
foundation of modern biology. Thus, it is abundantly clear that his issue is
not primarily with the philosophical, theological, or even social accretions on
the science, but with what the science itself claims

Science or Philosophy?

Schönborn complains that readers have misunderstood the mode of his
discourse.He claims that he
was analysing neo-Darwinism not from a scientific, theological or even
‘Intelligent Design’ perspective, but from a “careful examination of everyday
experience, in other words on philosophy”. He would like us to think that his
arguments and conclusions are based on “the natural ability of the human
intellect to grasp the intelligible realities that populate the natural world,
including most clearly and evidently the world of living substances…”. In other
words, a careful consideration of the natural world from a philosophical
perspective leads, Schönborn would argue, to the unavoidable conclusion that the
universe is ordered by an intellect with the precise objective of bringing forth
human beings.

Well, of course there’s nothing wrong with that as a theological
stance and one expects nothing else from a Catholic
theologian.Although not
everyone acknowledges the robustness of the Teleological Argument, which is the
argument from order in the natural world to the existence of a creator, if
Schönborn had restricted himself to elaborating it, there would be no need for
this reply.But he goes much further than that.He claims that neo-Darwinism is, at heart, an ideological movement in
opposition to the values and beliefs of the Church.He bases this on the
allegation that neo-Darwinists frequently violate the
proper boundaries of science to make philosophical or theological claims about
the existence or non-existence of God.

He goes on to
proffer his conception of randomness, one of the key scientific
ideas of neo-Darwinism, as evidence that neo-Darwinism is opposed to the
theistic principles of the Faith at its very core. His understanding of
randomness in evolutionary theory is horribly muddled as we shall
see. In putting forward this argument about random elements, an argument that
is plainly about the scientific rather than the philosophical merits of neo-Darwinism,
Schönborn does just what he berates biologists for: he fails to keep his argument
strictly within the boundary he himself has set

Will
you know them by their quotes?

Let us look first at Schönborn’s claim that neo-Darwinism is not
science but an
atheistic ideology.To demonstrate this, Schönborn quotes Will Provine: “Modern science
directly implies that the world is organized in accordance with deterministic
principle or chances.There are no purposive principles whatsoever in nature. There are no
gods and no designing forces rationally detectable” He also quoted Julian Huxley
and Peter Atkins in his first Catechetical Lecture in St Stephen’s Cathedral,
Vienna to make the same point.He says three things about these quotations: that they violate the
scientific method, that they are “bold and completely unqualified”, and that
they show that neo-Darwinism is, at heart, an ideology antithetical to the teachings of the
Church.

(As an aside, we should note that Provine is using not
neo-Darwinian ideas as the grist for his mill, but the findings of science in
general).

Schönborn is anxious to undermine
the scientific credentials of neo-Darwinism, since this clears the way for
criticising it as an atheistic and positivist movement without bringing the
Church and 'true' science into direct conflict. His tactic here is to assert that,
since statements about the (non)existence of God by biologists are unscientific,
then the theory itself is not science but ideology. He recognises, I think, that
statements by a scientist in the context of a scientific paper form part of the
body of science, while popular books and newspaper articles do not, and so he
adds: “Many of these assertions are in textbooks and scientific journals, not
just in popular writings.I will leave it to others to compile a complete list of such
quotations”. None of Schönborn’s three quotations come from scientific papers or
textbooks, so his admonition is reminiscent of a professor of physics saying: “I
leave it to the student to derive a reconciliation of quantum theory and general
relativity”.The peer-reviewed
literature is as free as it can be from the baggage of theology, and so are, as
far as I can tell, textbooks. For example, there is simply no reference
whatsoever to theological matters in either of the two major undergraduate texts
on evolutionary biology by Ridley and Futuyama that I have to hand. So just
where are these theological assertions in the formal science? Where is the
anti-theistic conspiracy? I would argue that the science is exactly as it should
be, free of theological assertions and based on methodological materialism, the
result of a rich collaboration of biologists of all faiths and no faith – at
least that is the conclusion that a genuine acquaintance with the literature
would suggest.

Does this mean that scientists always keep within the scientific
boundaries in everything they say, privately and publicly? Of course not; nor should they. Why should
they not express their philosophical or theological ideas when they are not
actually formally reporting scientific work? Let us reflect on Schönborn’s indignant objection
to neo-Darwinists who draw theological conclusions from their understanding of
the natural world.Almost in the same breath that Schönborn promotes “the natural
ability of the human intellect to grasp the intelligible realities that populate
the natural world”, he rebukes neo-Darwinists for making theological assertions
in “bold and completely unqualified” ways.So, if it is not the natural ability of the human intellect that
qualifies people to reach philosophical conclusions, then what is
it?Biologists and
scientists in general have at least as much understanding of the natural world
as Schönborn does, and, I would venture, more. They also have at least as much
natural ability to grasp the intelligible realities.

Now I can see how it must be galling for someone who believes in the
power of the Argument from Design to find that some of those who devote their
lives to studying the natural world doubt its merits. When scientists are doing
science, they rightly restrict themselves to proposing only natural causes for
the phenomena that they observe, an approach known as methodological materialism.
But
that should not violate the right of scientists to take their experience of the
world as a basis for a worldview that they express publicly.Nor does it inherently invalidate their philosophical conclusions –
scientists’ philosophical worldview has, prima facie, the same validity as
anyone else's.It seems to me that Schönborn wants to employ the theological
equivalent of Maxwell’s demon – according to him, it’s fine to use our natural
ability to observe the world and reason our way to a worldview, provided we
reach the same conclusion that he does.If however, by looking at the natural world and exercising their
intellect, some scientists reach a different conclusion, they are “bold and
completely unqualified”.

The focus of Schönborn’s assault by quotation on biologists is
unfair. It suits his purpose to imply that biologists are especially prone to
make what, to him, are culpable claims, as this augments his contention that
neo-Darwinism is peculiarly antithetical to Catholic belief.But scientists expert in other branches of science reach the same
sharply agnostic or atheistic
conclusions, as do Provine, Huxley and Atkins:

Stephen Hawking: “But if the universe is really completely
self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor
end: it would simply be. What place then for a creator?”

Richard Feynman: "It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe,
this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all
the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on,
all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human
beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The
stage is too big for the drama."

Feynman again: "I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel
frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without
any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't
frighten me."

Steven Weinberg: “It's a consequence of the experience of science. As you learn more
and more about the universe, you find you can understand more and more without
any reference to supernatural intervention, so you lose interest in that
possibility. Most scientists I know don't care enough about religion even to
call themselves atheists. And that, I think, is one of the great things about
science -- that it has made it possible for people not to be
religious.”

Physicists, like neo-Darwinists, have worldviews that range all the
way from devout belief (Coyne and Barr, John Polkinghorne and Abdus Salam) to
proselytising anti-religious atheism like Weinberg and Vic Stenger (one of that
rare breed, a professional physicist and a professional philosopher). In the
same way that an atheistic worldview doesn't invalidate the physics, it doesn't
invalidate the biology. So we can see that there is nothing peculiar about
biology amongst the natural sciences in this regard. There is, therefore, good
reason for rejecting Schönborn’s proposition that since some neo-Darwinists
express worldviews that conflict with theism, then neo-Darwinism is inherently
an anti-religious ideology rather than science.

Dice at the Royal Court

Let us now turn to Schönborn’s analysis of neo-Darwinism itself and
specifically to his discussion of the inference we should draw from the
biological conclusion that there are random elements in the Theory of Evolution.
He latches onto the idea of randomness in evolutionary biology as evidence for
his proposition that the Theory of Evolution is inherently
anti-theistic.He says that mutations are random (we'll see in a moment what
biologists actually mean by this statement), and that natural selection and the
environment that acts on phenotypes are random too.He would have us understand the foundation of modern biology thus:
from an “unconstrained, unintelligible mess emerges, deus ex machina, the precisely ordered
and extraordinarily intelligible world of living organisms”.He doesn't say in what sense the world of living organisms is
‘extraordinarily intelligible’; he doesn't explain why he thinks it is more
intelligible than, say, the geological world, or chemistry, or classical or
quantum mechanics, or optics. So I feel justified in interpreting this
statement as a rhetorical device for contrasting what he portrays as the
exquisite organisation of life with what he claims is a disordered unsystematic
messy process – surely, he implies, no one in their right senses can suggest
that one proceeds from the other?

In order to support this argument, Schönborn needs neo-Darwinian
processes to be more disorganised and shambolic than other natural processes,
so he proposes that randomness in biology is fundamentally different from the
randomness of classical thermodynamics or quantum theory. The randomness in
those sciences, he claims, is “embedded in and constrained by a deeply
mathematical and precise conceptual structure of the whole that makes the
overall behaviour of the system orderly and intelligible”, whereas the
randomness in Darwinian biology is, well, "simply random”.

What might be meant
by randomness in science? Schönborn gives no definition of what he means (nor does
it seem that he has one clearly in mind). Actually, defining randomness is quite a hard problem in
both philosophy and science. He talks about randomness as a process that is
‘uncorrelated’ but makes not the slightest nod to the different possible
meanings of the term – for example, we can interpret random events as being
unpredictable, non-deterministic, undirected in terms of a particular outcome, or
uncorrelated to other events. Within the natural sciences the term ‘randomness’ can
have all these different meanings in different contexts, although two of them
('unpredictable’ and ‘undirected’) are more observations about how we perceive the behaviour of
natural systems than categories relating to their actual underlying
behaviour.

Both deterministic and non-deterministic systems can be
unpredictable.Deterministic systems such as
geological faults or weather patterns are unpredictable at a macroscopic scale, because we are unable fully to
determine all of the variables that determine their behaviour and/or because
their behaviour is chaotic (ie their evolution is exquisitely sensitive to
initial conditions). For example, earthquakes arising from shifting tectonic
plates at the San Andreas
fault are entirely deterministic and geologists can predict the typical pattern
and total energy release from the fault over long periods; they can also predict the
probability of an event of a given magnitude occurring within a given time
period; they cannot, however, predict the precise timing or magnitude of the
next event , something that the inhabitants of California have to live with. The unpredictability of systems like this seems to be based on our
inability to know absolutely accurately all the variables that contribute to
their behaviour.The specific direction of evolution can be said to be random in this
sense, since the mechanisms operating across entire populations of organisms and
the interaction of these with the environment is immensely complex. Nevertheless
we can develop rules and models about these mechanisms and quantify their effects
statistically in much the same way that we quantify and model geological
phenomena.

On the other hand, individual quantum mechanical events are
understood by most physicists to be fundamentally non-deterministic.
‘Non-deterministic’ in this context is an inherent property of the system, and quantum events
are unpredictable on an individual basis, even if we know everything there is to
know about every variable of the microstate.Nevertheless, the behaviour of ensembles of such events on a
statistical basis can be well understood and predictable. Quantum events, such as
radioactive decay, give rise to radiation that directly causes mutations, and so
the reservoir of genotypes in a population is directly affected by events that
are inherently random.

Given these
considerations and Schönborn's failure to define what he means by randomness,
it’s not at all clear what he is saying when he
states,“The randomness of
neo-Darwinian biology is…simply random. The variation through genetic mutation is random. And
natural selection is also random: the properties of the ever-changing
environment that drive evolution through natural selection are also not
correlated to anything, according to the Darwinists”.If he is suggesting, as he seems to be, that the mechanism of
evolution represented by neo-Darwinism describes a system that behaves entirely
unpredictably, that obeys no rules, and in which things occur according to
caprice, then he is wrong. In claiming that neo-Darwinism results in a system
with behaviour that has no discernible pattern or mathematical predictability he
seems to be unaware of the entire field of Population and Quantitative Genetics,
which provides an excellent theoretical framework for predicting the effects of
evolution at a molecular level. It is mistaken to say, as Schönborn does, that
Natural Selection is a random process. Natural Selection is a statistically
predictable filter that changes the probability of allele inheritance on the
basis of the interaction between the environment and the phenotype resulting
from the allele.

When Schönborn talks about the environment not being correlated to
anything, he is again mistaken in his interpretation of the science. Of course the
environment, the climate, the atmosphere, the local conditions are random in the
sense of not being precisely predictable. While the exact timing of a large
meteorite strike on the earth is not correlated to anything at all to do with
life on earth and is unpredictable, evolutionary theory does not claim a random
response to the resulting transformed environment – the uncorrelated event of a
bolide strike does not cause a random evolutionary response.Many species, whole orders, are known to go extinct as a result of
such a catastrophe.Evolutionary theory predicts that the species which survive are those
that are adapted or most able to adapt rapidly to the new environment; that
surviving species will evolve to be better fitted to the new environment; and that the
surviving species will rapidly (in evolutionary terms) diversify to fill old
ecological niches left empty by extinction and new niches created in
the new environment.

Of course there are random elements in neo-Darwinism.Biologists say that mutations are random. They do not mean, when they say this, that
mutations are uncaused, or that they occur with equal probability in all genes,
or that all mutations at a given locus are equally probable. What they mean is
that mutations are not biased to improve the fitness of the individual. In all
the work that has been done on identifying mutational rates in a wide range of
organisms, no one has found a case where beneficial mutations (ie mutations more
likely to be inherited) occur preferentially (Barry Hall’s work on hypermutation
in bacteria comes closest but more recent studies support the general
conventional view). While there are many possible things that can lead to
mutations, none of them have any 'knowledge' of the consequences for the organism
of the changes they make.For example, the DNA polymerase that makes a copy of DNA each
time a cell divides makes occasional mistakes, making approximately three errors
every time it makes a copy of human DNA.Whilst scientists can determine the probability of any given mutation
at a specific place during a specific molecular process, the precise location and
type of mutation that occurs in each individual case is random and unpredictable. That
appears to be a simple physical fact and no quantity of philosophical
agonising can change that.

Other random phenomena occur in evolution – for example, the
random assortment of paternally and maternally acquired genetic material during
the recombination and disjunction phases of sperm and egg production, which provides
entirely novel and randomly selected combinations of genetic material from one generation
to the next. The cellular processes that achieve this are entirely naturalistic, depending on spindles and
other cellular mechanisms, and yet the gene pool of each population is
contingent on these random processes. Another example of randomness occurs in
sperm selection – the fittest sperm are the ones most likely to fertilise an
egg, but there is no correlation between the genetic cargo of the sperm and
its fitness (except in that small number of genes that directly regulate sperm
production and sperm motility).

In fact randomness in both gamete production and sperm competition
is not a condition just of evolutionary biology, but also of reproduction.
Random processes are fundamental
in the determination of the genotype and the phenotype of individual human
beings. It is essential to understand that whatever definition of ‘randomness’
one chooses to describe cell-line mutations, random sorting in meiosis and sperm
selection, then that definition applies equally to the mechanism of evolution and to
the creation of individual human beings. These random processes neither mandate nor
eliminate God from the creation of a human being.I wonder if Schönborn resists the idea that random elements exist in
human procreation, or whether he reconciles these elements by accepting that
the randomness is part of divine providence and by the
belief that each individual is willed by God. There is, in fact, no difference
in kind between the randomness that determines the genetic makeup and hence
fundamental physical and mental properties of an individual human being, and the
randomness that is the foundation for evolution.If Schönborn can reconcile one with divine providence, there is no
reason why he should not reconcile the other.

Cardinal Ratzinger,
now Pope Benedict XVI,
recognised this when he wrote in the July 2004 Vatican Statement on Creation and
Evolution: "But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic
understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not
incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created
causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the
outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s
providential plan for creation.” In this statement, Ratzinger seems to get
successfully and smoothly to the very nub of the issue that Schönborn struggles
with.

To summarise,
Schönborn thinks that all
processes in the neo-Darwinian mechanism are “simply random” and he ignores or
denies the non-random systematic basis of the science. For example, evolutionary
theory predicts the probability of inheritance of a particular allele in a
population based on a measure of the concomitant fitness it produces in the
organism.These predictions are testable and have been extensively
tested. His conceptions of randomness in science and of the processes of neo-Darwinism
as an unintelligible mess are flawed. The theory has been elaborated
in thousands of papers in dozens of scientific journals over decades by some of
the best minds alive. It is sophisticated, self-consistent, empirically
supported and systematic.

We can definitively answer Schönborn’s challenge: “how successful is
modern biology…at excluding the rational consideration of final cause?” The
answer is very successful, for no consideration of final cause enters the
science and the conclusion of randomness is a purely natural one, based on
observation and experiment, no different in kind from the conclusion that random
elements exist in reproductive processes, thermodynamics, quantum physics,
geology, meteorology, and other natural sciences.There is no inappropriate ‘theology’ thinking to be found
in observing that randomness is part of the evolutionary process.

Puppets and
pageants

Schönborn thinks that anyone who looks at the history of life on
earth must conclude that the entire and exact extant biosphere is the
deterministic product of design and intention, that the variation that occurred
was “exactly the variation needed to give rise to an upward sweep of evolution
resulting in human beings”.Well, if we insist on a deterministic and directed evolution, we
would have to conclude, with JBS Haldane, that the Almighty has “an inordinate
fondness for beetles”.

In developing his theme, he expresses a number of questionable
ideas:

He sees the current
biosphere as the final target of the evolutionary process whereas a proper
perspective would see it as one of millions of transitory way-stations in a process that began 2.5 to 3 billion years ago and continues into
the future

Similarly he sees
humans as the pinnacle and final target of an allegedly designed upward sweep of
evolution – this ignores the salient fact that since initially there would have
been no life in the universe, the only possible mean trend, whether it is
planned or unplanned, is in the direction of greater complexity, and that that
process is not complete, but continues today and into the future

“The variation that
actually occurred in the history of life was exactly the sort needed to bring
about the complete set of plants and animals that
exist today” [his emphasis].That’s like a poker player saying that the kind of card shuffle
before his cards were dealt is exactly the kind of shuffle to give rise to the
hand he holds.As he himself acknowledges, the
statement is tautological, and it is very
difficult to see what conclusion one can reasonably draw from
it.It certainly does
not follow from this observation that the current biosphere has been shaped by
purely deterministic processes or by guidance or planning (nor, of course, does
it exclude those things). It’s simply not a very interesting or helpful
statement, if the actual nature of the variation isn't specified

While the Catholic
Church teaches that God maintains the universe from moment to
moment, many Catholics believe that God does so according the natural laws that
we are able to discern and that therefore science is a detailed description
of how God runs the world. They believe that a belief in divine providence does not need
Him to violate the natural laws, even
where these laws contain random elements. (I should point out, however, that a universe unfolding
atheistically according to a set of natural laws and one in which God directs the
universe strictly according to the natural laws that He set are indistinguishable
by science). Schönborn resists the idea that contingency and randomness
can be part of the way God sustains the world. According to him, unless we
believe that God actively directs and leads the universe deterministically from
state to state, we give up philosophy’s high ground and allow that the human
natural intelligence is, after all, incapable of reliably detecting design in
nature. Furthermore,
we fall, he says,
into Deism. This is not so, as we have seen, since a belief in theistic evolution
as we have defined it successfully reconciles randomness, contingency and divine
providence. In adopting his stance, he undercuts the position of many reasoning
Catholics who are trying thoughtfully and with considerable success to reconcile
good science with their faith.

In short, if we follow Schönborn, we must reject the biological
Theory of Evolution as an explanation for the current diversity of species and
replace it with – well, with what?Special creation of each species? A world in which the scientifically
discernible natural laws are constantly violated by God’s intervention to
procure the ‘right’ mutation here and a happy recombination event there?
Schönborn, of course, offers no hypothesis for an alternative to neo-Darwinism.

Why does he
limit his attention to biological evolution? Why not claim special
divine intervention to pull matter together to create the Milky Way, the Sun and
the earth? Why not oppose, on a philosophical basis, the concordance model of
cosmology, since it holds that the current distribution of matter is determined by random quantum fluctuations in the inflationary field
of the early universe, a process that is more radically random than any
biological process? Why not give up the idea altogether that the natural world
operates according to a set of discernible laws and return to a primitive belief
that natural phenomena are caused by the direct, routine, unsystematic and
capricious intervention of supernatural agents?

He demands that some scientific conclusions, specifically random
elements in evolutionary biology, are forbidden, a priori, on philosophical
grounds, much as the scholastic heirs of Aristotelian cosmology insisted on the
perfection of the cosmos, a way of thinking that has since been forced to yield to observation. History tells us that it is a
risky business to insist on the way that things go in the universe on purely
philosophical grounds. It is not Darwinian biology that leads us into a mess,
but Schönborn’s natural theology.

Conclusion

The Cardinal’s thesis is based on a mistaken understanding of the methods
and content of biological and other sciences.
He goes beyond a theologian’s reminder to
scientists not to bring theological considerations into their science and, in
effect, he argues that some findings of science should be
rejected a priori on religio-philosophical grounds. He would replace the
elegant concept that order and complexity arise from simple laws,
the grand pageant of life's diversity, with a puppet show. Surely, Catholics
have nothing to fear from the idea of randomness and contingency in
nature. For many, the idea that God's providence acts with and through random
elements embedded in the discernible laws enhances the grandeur
and wonder of the development of the world. At any rate, I prefer such a
complex world to one that dances on the strings of a meddlesome
puppet master, and
am grateful that it is so.

There is a real need for Catholics, whose tradition embraces science
and reason, to reconcile the truths that science reveals
with the doctrines of their faith.Schönborn offers no such hope – on the contrary, he frequently relies on ‘scientific’ statements (ie
statements about the natural world that can be tested for validity) that are
at best
naïve and, in some cases, simply wrong, in order to trumpet
the long discredited idea of the primacy of philosophy over science in determining
how
nature goes.Catholics deserve
better.

I am indebted
to Jason Meyers, Phil Porvaznik and John King without whose help this article
would have been even poorer than it is. I am solely responsible for all opinions,
errors,
omissions and non-sequiturs